Newtown, CT School Shooting: Morgan Freeman's Take

There's something about Morgan Freeman that just demands respect. It's probably his deep, secure voice, coupled with his intense portrayal of everyone from God to Batman's technological supervisor Lucius Fox. Nevertheless, his words regarding the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut really struck a chord with me, even though it may not have been Morgan Freeman who actually gave the statement. Like the image I posted about last week, this statement is meant to grab the audience's attention about a topic they might not have considered before, and in this case, to do something about the problem being discussed.

Crediting this quote to Morgan Freeman may or may not have been an attempt to gain credibility (ethos), but each and every sentence has a rhetorical purpose as well. For example, the use of rhetorical questions is prevalent throughout the relatively short piece, in order to have the audience gain awareness about their own knowledge/ignorance and stir up emotion towards the cause. The statement is incredibly emotional, which reflects the intense emotion of the tragedy itself, and ends with a sarcastic remark regarding media coverage of the school shooting.

This statement affected me so much that I have included some of the victims' names and faces, as well as the original statement, in order to spread the message to any of my readers. Please take the time to honor the victims of the shooting and their devastated families.


"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the k!ller's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the k!ller's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/newtown-connecticut-school-shooting-victims/story?id=17984685#1

Noah Pozner, 6

Emily Parker, 6

Jesse Lewis, 6

Victoria Soto, 27

Grace Audrey McDonnell, 7

Catherine Hubbard, 6

 

Humans Aren't The Only Victims of War

I always seem to get more choked up over the death of a dog than the death of a human. There must be something in their innocence and unyielding loyalty that makes me linger on images like this every single time. While iwastesomuchtime.com (I know, but it's addicting) typically displays funny internet memes, statuses, and comics, sometimes a meaningful image like this appears and makes me stop for a minute. Sometimes that's all rhetors really want from their audience: a moment of thought and appreciation towards the topic displayed.

Just like in O'Brien's How To Tell A True War Story, I think the death of animals is used to draw emotion from the audience, especially because the death of soldiers unfortunately faces apathy from the general public in today's world. The composition of this photo draws the audience down the soldier's arm to the sweet dog below, then pulls our attention to the memorial that the subjects are looking at as well. Here we see a memorial for 25 dogs that have given their lives, perhaps unknowingly so, for the noble pursuit of freedom. The man and dog staring at the memorial are paying their respects, (even if the dog doesn't understand the significance of the memorial) and the man is taking a moment to show his best friend his love.This makes the audience aware and grateful for the jobs of dogs in the military that perform jobs humans are incapable of doing.

This image is meant to catch the audience attention and maintain it long enough for them to appreciate the value of dogs in the military and all that they do as man's loyal best friend.

Never Mind Talent: Practice, practice, practice

Karen Rile urges parents to engage their kids in rigorous pursuits that require a large amount of practice early on in this week's Philadelphia Inquirer. She uses her own experience with daughters and their love of playing violin to make her case, which establishes some knowledge of the topic, but she fails to incorporate any statistics or evidence from true "experts" to further the credentials of her argument. Her own intellect, as a professor of creative writing at Ivy League school University of Pennsylvania, and her experience in the matter make up for this flaw almost entirely.

I think one of the most compelling parts to Karen Rile's argument is her casual tone, which makes me feel like I know her as a loving mother of one of my friends. She uses first-person point-of-view, and immidately begins the article by stating, "Me, I want to be a natural...But I'm usually that class dunce, or at least that's what it feels like as I struggle to keep up after the going gets tough" (D2). Rile becomes familiar and quickly gets the audience on her side, as she takes them through her life of Suzuki violin lessons and the lessons her daughters learned about "the habit of patient practice that has seen them through the long, slow development of mastery" (D2). Demonstrating her own realization of the power of practice, (which she notes is better than having natural talent in any field) Rile effectively convinces her audience to follow her conclusions and disregard the pressure to be a prodigy.

I think this article was extremely effective in proving the benefits to introducing kids to practice and hard work at an early age, but I would've liked seeing a variety of different activities incorporated. Is Suzuki better than pee-wee soccer? Perhaps I would need to read another article from a different author to find out...